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Orientation 2

Naikan In Four Movements

This four-part Naikan series grew out of a course I offered at Baltimore Dharma Group in Spring 2025. While Naikan is often framed as a tool for self-reflection, I came to see it as something more relational: not a system of correction, but a practice of returning—again and again—to what holds us, what flows through us, what we leave behind, and what we remain with.
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Orientation 3

Threadwork

Here, in language, is the closest I have come to tracing the patterns I live inside — and the patterns I see others living inside, too. ...That, to me, is the heart of this offering: not to win empathy through performance, but to make coherence inhabitable — even when the pattern isn't matched. These pieces are not arguments. They do not aim to persuade. They exist to demonstrate — without explanation. To resonate — without claiming universality. To name the cost of asymmetry — without blaming the other. To hold clarity — without self-erasure.
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Orientation 4

Holding Vow Sutra: An Introduction

Introduction and Intention:  This is a sutra, but not a sutra in the traditional sense. It is not part of the Buddhist canon, nor is it offered from a seat of transmission or formal authority. It is, rather, a thread — woven from lived practice, shaped by fidelity, and rooted in a vow that did not begin with me and does not end with me.
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The Autistic Mode: A Way Of Thinking

We all have moments of deep concentration—those times when we are so absorbed in something that the world recedes. A musician practicing alone, refining a passage with exquisite focus. A philosopher turning an argument over in their mind, testing its weight from every angle. A scientist working through the layers of an equation, adjusting variables, refining the logic until it holds. In these moments, the noise of the world fades, and what remains is a kind of clarity, a steady presence of thought moving toward resolution.

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Threshold to Threadwork

Introduction: There are two doors into this work. The one below meets the moment. It is written in accessible language—for those seeking clarity about autistic experience, and especially about how it differs in rhythm, in structure, and in the invisible labor it asks of those who must translate themselves to be understood. But this isn’t the only way in. There is another door—quieter, less translated, more interior. If you're looking not just for insight, but for shape—if you’ve ever sensed that what goes unspoken is sometimes the most coherent thing there is—you may find yourself at home there.
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Musings from the Meta-Verse: Tip of the Iceberg Cosmologies

Before you begin: please take a moment, settle in, enjoy the image above—of me holding my baby daughter as a first-time dad, tune into the frequency of restful wonder. Now allow your mind to wander outward from the edges of that image: to the room, to the street outside, to the vast sky beyond the vast sky. Further—past the solar system, past the galaxy’s edge, past everything known—to the edge of the cosmos. And then…

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Woven

I never stopped making art. I just didn’t always call it that. What I made with you, my loves — in those days we shared — was the most embodied form of relational creation. Art was us — there was no interruption. Something Luu Li and and I talked about yesterday landed deeply. She said, “Wow Papa, 54 years! I'm so glad you’re starting to do art again.” And I told her — honestly — it’s never left me. But after that, I found myself thinking: when I was homeschooling Luu Li and CT, I wasn’t just not doing art — I was expressing my creativity through my life with them.
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True Luxury



As Cát Tiên fell asleep for her 10 AM nap, a load of whites was finishing in the washing machine. While she slept, I took about 20 minutes to hang everything up on the lines on our rooftop deck. The dryer hasn't been used since the end of June.

My new "boss" is a 10-month old baby. She's the most loving, fun, and joyous companion I could wish for.

Before this, my real boss was our two incomes.

Now, I can do dishes by hand. I can hang laundry. Christina always said hanging laundry was one of those things that we could do to make a difference, but there was never time. I can clean the house and cook a meal. I can take care of my daughter, and appreciate the gift my beautiful wife gave me.

I'm so grateful to Christina for thinking of this arrangement.

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Comments

  1. AnonymousAugust 11, 2009 12:49 PM

    Hi Lou,

    I was helping Christina with her Mac that needed the new hard drive and she pointed me to your blog.

    I'm glad to see that you are enjoying being home with your daughter. It is rather remarkable all the things that can be accomplished and how simply one can live without all the modern "necessities".

    Take care!

    -Ryan

    ReplyDelete
  2. ddhAugust 12, 2009 3:50 PM

    Hi anh Luu,

    Cat Tien is so cute, too bad that I haven't met her yet! :-( And I totally agree with Christina about hanging laundry!

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